Could key climate talks mark ground zero in global push to ditch fossil fuels? | Climate crisis

L.Gazing out to sea from the gray sandy beaches of Santa Marta on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, it’s never hard to see evidence of the country’s thriving fossil fuel export trade. Oil tankers anchor on the horizon, and locals say piles of coal sometimes wash ashore and blow up mining ships carrying cargo from nearby mines.

The Colombian government took a bold step here Wednesday evening to transition its economy and the rest of the world away from dependence on coal, gas and oil and into a new era of clean energy. The first conference on “moving away from fossil fuels” was hosted by nearly 60 countries committed to loosening the petrostates’ grip on the world’s future.

“This is the beginning of a new global climate democracy,” said Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s environment minister and chair of the negotiations, in her closing remarks celebrating the “new method” of bringing together high-ambition governments, parliamentarians and civil society groups to accelerate the decarbonization of their economies.

At this moment in history, the conference could also mark a new global divide between “electro-democracies” and petro-dictatorships.

The initiative comes at a pivotal moment in the climate fight. Oil and gas prices have risen since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, the second crisis in five years after price increases following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Households around the world are mired in debt, farmers can’t afford fertilizer, and governments are remembering that dependence on volatile fossil fuels is holding them hostage to geopolitical forces they can’t control.

The global economy faces a triple whammy: rising energy costs; subsequent rising food costs; and the specter of hyperinflation, which would raise interest rates and increase the cost of servicing debt. Both rich and poor countries feel the impact, but the poor with higher debt levels and lower reserves suffer more.

Repeated oil shocks devastated the 1970s, and the current crisis is not only bigger than them, but more impactful than all previous crises combined, according to Fatih Birol, the world’s leading energy economist and head of the International Energy Agency, the gold standard in energy research. “This is bigger than all the biggest crises combined, so it is huge,” he told the Guardian in an exclusive interview. “I still cannot understand that the world is so blind and that the global economy can be held captive by a 50 km long strait.”

What’s different about today’s previous oil shocks is that a viable alternative is available: cheap, reliable and abundant renewable energy from wind and solar, combined with modern battery technology to offset any disruptions; Electric vehicles and heat pumps can direct transportation and heating from fossil fuels to much more efficient electricity.

For these reasons, Birol predicted that the current shock would mark a permanent change for the global energy sector and lead to consumer countries losing confidence in fossil fuels. “Perceptions of risk and reliability will change,” he said. “Governments will review their energy strategies. There will be a significant increase in renewables and nuclear energy, and a shift towards a more electric future. This will shrink the main oil markets.”

He added that these changes will be permanent. “The vase is broken, the damage has been done; it will be very difficult to put the pieces back together. This will have lasting consequences on the global energy market for years to come.”

That it was the oil industry’s dominance of global economies that finally alerted governments to the dangers is an irony not lost on UN climate chief Simon Stiell. “The fossil fuel cost crisis is now strangling the global economy,” he said. “Those fighting to keep the world dependent on fossil fuels are inadvertently accelerating the global renewable energy boom.”

According to think tank Ember, renewable energy surpassed coal in global electricity production for the first time last year, producing 33.8% of electricity compared to coal’s 33%. From Pakistan to the UK, consumer interest in solar panels and batteries has increased since the Iran war.

“The economic logic of renewable energy [is] “It is impossible to ignore,” said Stiell. Military advisors also weighed in on the issue, noting that renewable energy sources offer a better path to national security than fossil fuels. Stiell noted: “Governments are pushing their renewable energy plans into overdrive: to restore national security, economic stability, competitiveness, policy autonomy, and fundamental sovereignty.”

But no one should write off petrostates just yet. The United States, the world’s largest gas producer, is the Trump administration’s “energy dominance“. Russia, the second largest gas supplier, is waging war against its democratic neighbor Ukraine. Fossil fuel interests large sums of money are flowing to the political campaigns of far-right candidates in America and Europe.

Santa Marta’s vision of a “new global climate democracy” pits the power of people against this. Polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of the world’s people want their governments to take stronger action against the climate crisis, but in many international meetings their voices are drowned out by corporate lobbyists or silenced by petrostate vetoes.

In Santa Marta, on the contrary, science came to the fore on the opening day, followed by a “people’s summit” and parliamentary meetings. All of these groups sent representatives to high-level hearings in the last two days; There were no vetoes here, no bitter negotiations over details, just intense and constructive dialogue about how to move forward. Many participants described the meeting as historic, but few were under the illusion that it was anything more than a strong start.

Claudio Angelo of Observatorio do Clima, a think tank in Brazil, said: “I don’t think the Santa Marta process poses an immediate threat to the fossil fuel industry. It’s more about countries organizing to come up with a plan. Even among the ‘makers’ the fossil industry landscape is diverse: national oil companies in Latin America, private oil giants in Europe and parts of Africa. These folks will fight for smooth transition timelines until they can either compete with Chinese electricity or be forced out.” by governments to diversify.

Although the transition to renewable energy will be cheaper for all countries in the long run, the transition has an up-front cost. Fossil fuel-producing countries will also need financing to invest in new industries to replace lost oil, gas and coal export revenues.

The purpose of the Santa Marta conference was not new financial commitments; rich countries proposed a deal worth $300 billion a year by 2035 at the COP29 conference in 2029, and it will not be possible to improve this offer further as the US withdraws its dollar.

But there may be other ways to find cash. Diverting some of the $1.5 trillion currently spent annually worldwide to subsidize fossil fuels would help, and raising money from companies profiting from the climate crisis through windfall taxes and other mechanisms is always an option. David Hillman, director of the Make Polluters Pay coalition, said: “Fossil fuel giants are profiting from this war, figuratively speaking. Their excess unearned profits are supposed to fund the transition to renewable energy to accelerate the end of our fossil fuel addiction.”

Almost all of the 59 countries participating in Santa Marta are democracies, and this represents both a strength and a vulnerability. Colombia will hold a presidential election at the end of May, in which the ruling party’s candidate, Iván Cepeda, will face a fierce challenge from far-right populist Abelardo de la Espriella, who wants to increase fracking and oil production. If the latter wins, the global energy transition movement will lose one of its most important nations.

Colombia is not the only country facing challenges. Santa Marta’s host, the Netherlands, announced new drilling in the North Sea just before the conference. The UK is also considering new North Sea fields, and other existing countries from Brazil to Tanzania also have fossil fuel expansion plans. For this to become the hoped-for “conference of makers,” these decisions will need to be reversed.

Countries are expected to begin the process of preparing national roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels before the next conference to be held on the Pacific island of Tuvalu, hosted by Ireland, early next year. Organizers want these plans to feed into the broader UN climate negotiation process and encourage others to join the transition movement.

Roadmaps offer countries a way to attract investors and also provide guidance to their sectors to help ensure the transition to a low-carbon world is fair for workers and the most vulnerable people. Ireland’s former president, Mary Robinson, said: “We need three transitions: From fossil fuels to renewable energy for all and to a world that cares for nature. Everything must be based on justice.”

Santa Marta, a historically coal-fired town in the heart of a coal- and oil-fueled country, may eventually be considered ground zero for the fossil fuel extinction. Fernanda Carvalho, head of climate and energy policy at WWF International, said: “This is where the seeds of a new, application-focused initiative were planted.

“In times when multilateral processes have been exhausted and there is a gap in delivering the systems change we need, what emerges offers a different approach. This can be a true bottom-up process that centers the voices of the communities most impacted by fossil fuel extraction and consumption.”

But despite the “contagious” hopes felt by many participants in the Santa Marta talks, there is a long road ahead.